William Harrell
Rentz opened the VACO Theatre, the first movie theater in Varnville,
South Carolina, in 1915. In 1917, a fire destroyed a section of downtown
Varnville, including the movie theater. Mr. Rentz provided continued
film screenings in an outdoor setting until he could open another theater.
He opened the Strand Theatre in 1919. A Clemson graduate with a degree
in Civil Engineering, Mr. Rentz was a friend and mentor to Gerald Meeks,
who took over theater operations in 1924. The 1921 edition of The
Julius Cahn - Gus Hill Theatrical Guide and Moving Picture Directory
states that Mr. Rentz also managed the Pastime Theatre in Allendale,
South Carolina.

D. Ireland
Thomas

Damon
Ireland ThomasCharleston, South Carolina

D. Ireland Thomas
ran the Lincoln Theater in Charleston
beginning in the early 1920's. He was born in 1875, near New Orleans.
In 1900, he managed the Bijou Theater in Tampa, Florida. By 1904, He
was managing a tent show for entertainment entrepreneur, Patrick H.
Chappelle.

In 1916, Mr. Thomas
was the New Orleans District manager for the Lincoln Motion Picture
Company's national film distribution organization.

In 1919, Mr. Thomas
and Mr. Harry Gant co-directed "A Man's Duty" for the Lincoln
Motion Picture Company. For much of the early 1920's Mr. Thomas wrote
a weekly column on motion pictures for the Chicago Defender,
a leading national African American newspaper. Mr. Thomas helped organize
the Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.), an African American
vaudeville circuit. He was very committed to the community. He donated
land for a new fire station and for a school.

T. Lee Little

T.
Lee LittleCamden, South Carolina

In the 1900's, before
getting into motion picture exhibition, Mr. Little brought fair attractions
and carnivals to Camden. He booked "live" shows into the Opera
House. He booked the motion picture "Birth of a Nation" into
the Opera House as a special attraction with accompaniment of a full
orchestra.

One of the South's
pioneer exhibitors, Mr. Little began operating his Majestic Theater
in Camden on April 7, 1915. He opened the 1,000-seat Little Theater
in 1948 to replace the Majestic. He also operated the Haigler Theater
and the Sky-Vue Drive-In. An artice published in the Camden Chronicle
in 1955, states, "Few exhibitors can claim such a lengthy career.
In the whole of South Carolina, only "old-timers," Lee Little
[of Camden] and Albert Sottile of Charleston, have remained independent
exhibitors against the inroads of the chains and the ravages of time
and fortune."

Albert Sottile
1880 - 1960

Albert
SottileCharleston, South Carolina

Born in Sicily in
1880, Albert Sottile came to Charleston in 1891. "I came here because
my older brother had already found Charleston and found it to be a good
place for a young man to get along in the world."

In 1908, relations
between the three groups showing movies in Charleston, according to
Albert, "was bitter and unfriendly and it developed into a fight
of extermination. Gradually, as they all became satisfied that they
were playing a losing game, a spirit of trying to get together to solve
their problem developed among them and at this juncture, I was invited
to sit in with them, in the capacity of a mutual friend and ways and
means of forming a merger were the subject of discussion." Pastime
Amusement Company was formed to consolidate all the theaters in Charleston.
According to Sottile, "In compliance to the urgent demands made
by all interested parties, I became its first president."

Albert Sottile served
as president of Pastime Amusement Company until his death in 1960.

Malcolm Samuel
Suggs

Malcolm
Samuel SuggsColumbia, South Carolina

Before moving to
South Carolina in 1937, Sam Suggs managed movie theaters in Alabama,
Tennessee, and Virginia. He was City Manager of the seven Columbia Theatres
(Palmetto, Ritz, Strand, Carolina, 5 Points, Star-Lite Drive-In and
later the Richland Mall) in the Wilby-Kincey Theatre Chain, which was
based in Charlotte, NC. He became Distric Manager of the Palmetto Theater
Company after the retirement of Warren Irvin in the late 1960s. Mr.
Irvin described Mr. Suggs as "one of the finest theater men in
the South."

Describing the qualities
of a good theater manager, Suggs said, "He's got to have the ability
to feel the pulse of the theater-going public and know what it likes.
In other words, he's got to keep forever young. If he doesn't, he will
get behind the times."

Sam Suggs retired
in 1974, after spending 47 years in the film industry. He saw motion
pictures evolve from the silent era, through the "talkies"
and from black and white to wide-screen technicolor.

Francis B.
Kerr

Francis
B. KerrCharleston, South Carolina

Many Charlestonians
remember him as the manager of the Palace
Theatre at 566 King Street. During the 1940's and 1950's he carried
on the movie traditions, started by his father Basil R. Kerr, who opened
the Palace Theatre in 1931 as a combination vaudeville and movie theater.
Francis Kerr once said, "During the Great Depression, people found
it cheaper to spend hours in the theater than to go home and heat their
homes. So, in actuality, we were their home-away-from-home."

When a theater admission
tax was required in 1955, Francis Kerr reduced the 10 cent price of
tickets for children to 9 cents, so they wouldn't have to pay the extra
penny to see the Saturday Westerns, cartoons, and serials.

While Hollywood
was designing "Cinemascope" in 1955, Francis and his father
came out with their own three-dimensional screen, which they patented.
The Palace Theatre closed in 1957 and was torn down in 1968.

Harry Osteen
1915 - 2008

Harry
Osteen Anderson, South Carolina

Harry Osteen, Sr.
was not only a theater owner, but a theater historian as well. He produced
a DVD called, "The History of Theaters in Anderson, S.C."
which he narrated. His father, Mr. P.C. Osteen operated several theaters
in Anderson that showed motion pictures and staged Vaudeville performances.
Between 1946 and 1974, Harry, along with his brothers Percy, Bill, and
Albert, opened a series of movie theaters in Anderson.

George S. Brantley's
headstone at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston

George
S. Brantley and Florence BrantleyCharleston, South Carolina

George Brantley
and his wife Florence opened the first movie theater, The Theatorium,
at 321 King Street in Charleston, in 1907. He leased the space on the
ground level of the old American Hotel. They bought 114 kitchen chairs,
which George nailed together into rows of seats. They covered some boards
with cheesecloth and hung it for the screen. George built a small ticket
booth and painted a sign that read, "Theatorium." Florence
suggested he put a phonograph with a large horn on top of the ticket
booth to attract attention.

A newspaper account
stated, "Here you will see some of the best moving pictures that
can be produced on canvas by the most powerful apparatus."

Later that year,
he sold The Theatorium and opened the Majestic Theatre and The New Theatorium.
With so many theaters in operation, no one was making a profit. In 1908,
George joined James and Albert Sottile, John C. Sherrill, and A.T. Jennings
to form Pastime Amusement Company.

George became General
Manager of all the theaters operated by Pastime Amusement Company. They
closed two of the theaters and negotiated better prices from film distributors.
The new venture began to show a profit. After a few years, George sold
his interest in Pastime Amusement Company and opened White Swan Laundry.
He never returned to the theater business. He died in 1936 at the age
of fifty-nine. Florence died in 1972.

Gus Mason

Gus
Mason
Laurens, South Carolina

Mr. Gus Mason opened
the Capitol Theater in Laurens on June 10, 1926. In 1974, Mr. Mason
recalled, "The initial receipts were poor and rather depressing,
but business picked up as months passed by. Then the depression hit,
and attedance was really off. After the banks re-opened and the mills
began production again, people started going to the movies more and
more."

During World War
Two, business increased. Mr. Mason opened a second movie theatre in
Laurens, the Echo Theatre. Each theatre had two showings in the afternoon
and two in the evening. Every morning there was a showing at one of
the theatres for the people working on certain shifts at the local mills.

The popularity of
Drive-Ins and the introduction of television caused attendance to fall
off at the Laurens movie houses. Mr. Mason said, "Up until the
time that I retired from the motion picture business in 1963, the crowds
got smaller and smaller."